Dan has provided the following update, after last week’s meeting at the Co-op with Biodiversity Conservation Trust officers:
“After discussion with Gabriel today, the final day for Goolawah to lodge a ‘Bid’ for funding for having a deed placed on sections of Goolawah will be the 23rd July.
In approx one week we will receive a map of our lands with the areas that are ideal for conservation zoning. This should be in time for our next meeting to make a decision as to what areas (if any) the community would be happy to see turned into a koala habitat conservation zone.
We will also need to decide on a “bid” value. We can stipulate certain values for every year for the first 20 years, then an ongoing value (which will increase by CPI) in perpetuity after that.
As soon as we have the draft mapping, I or Roger will make a call out (phone tree etc) for any interested parties to convene a meeting to discuss plausible ‘works’ to be done.”
Goolawah Co-op Members 
One important thing, I think, is to understand the “Biodiversity Community Trust’s” objectives, its tedious but their business plan gives a lot away (just discovering that John Howard’s former right hand Gary Nairn is on the board didn’t make me feel too good ;-))
In their business plan you find things like
“The BCT assists landholders
to enter Biodiversity
Stewardship Agreements, if
they wish to generate and
sell biodiversity credits
•
The BCT secures offsets
on behalf of proponents
who choose to pay into the
Biodiversity Conservation
Fund, in accordance with
legislated offset scheme
rules. ”
It could well be that this trust is financed by selling “offsets” to justify more land clearing – like this:
– you clear land /for more habitat destructive xxl developments, you pay us money, we (BCT) give you the brownie points, you chop down whatever forest you like, because – ah! – we support these wonderful “conservation areas” in return, so we all can feel really good about ourselves (whilst promoting more land clearing)….
This is a bit simplified, but I just thought it might be a good idea if we read their business plan (and of course other info you might find about them), there’s lots wrapped in there, this above is just an example.
Have a read for yourself, I’m not quite on top of it either yet, but strongly suggest we understand the BCT before we get into a binding agreement with them. here’s the link to their Business Plan (try to read past the weasel words…;-)
Click to access BCT-Business-Plan.pdf
cheers Julica